Civilization 5 Rants Thread

The main thing that I don't get by this thread is WHY?
I mean, why bother to bother so much. The game company is not looking at threads like this because 99% of all replies in threads like this are so extremely over-exaggerated so even if the thought/issue behind a certain reply may have just cause, the immatureness writing that the reply ended up in are totally useless as constructive criticism.
So the thought behind a thread like this is to draw net-thrashers to a single thread so they can thrash here and not the whole forum, I guess.

I don't usually comment net-thrashers, but the few time I do comment them is with lines like "If you don't like this band, why looking it up in the first place, why not go and look up a band you do like" or "why not play and comment a game that you do like" or my favorite "Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?"

I am actually surprised that CFC allows net-thrashing. Even if it is under what they think is "controlled environment". Well this was my ranting :)
 
Moderator Action: To pre-empt responses, please don't.

If you have a problem with this thread, you are welcome to ignore it. Indeed, this is facilitated by having a singular rants thread. People are allowed to express their opinion on the game (so long as it's within the forum rules), and this thread allows them an opportunity to do that without you having to read it in other threads.

Additionally, far be it from me to get people's hopes up about the attention their posts on an internet forum may receive, I would direct you towards this post from earlier in the thread to answer the contention that 'the game company is not looking at threads like this'.
 
Hi,

I started the series back in Civ1 times and have since then put a ridiculous amount of time in all the games, especially Civ2 and Civ4. Naturally, I was really looking forward to Civ5. I got thrown off by all the negative reviews (I mean the real reviews, e.g. from Sulla, as opposed to the magazine reviews where any child can identify that they are bought by Firaxes (I mean come on, every third word in these articles is "great", "excellent", "amazing" etc, can't they make it a bit less obvious?)).

So I held back from paying money for this game, but was now finally able to try it out, using this "play-for-free this weekend" offer from Steam. I admit that over the last months I read this entire thread, so obviously I was pretty biased, but I switched on tolerance mode and forced myself not to start raging about every stupid feature I find, and to accept that this is a new game from Civ4.

I actually had fun playing. I was even starting to think that this whole rants thread went way over the top. This phase lasted for about 30 minutes. It was then that it dawned on me how broken the game design is, as it's been stated here so often. Everything is limited. You get punished for everything you do. I started in between of two other civs so I hurried to build four cities as not to get squashed. Till my empire collapsed in unhappiness for being too large. Aha, i thought, I guess the game doesn't intend me to play this way. So next game I focused on just two cities and decided to run a builder style instead. Till I realized that buildings cost gold and were starting to ruin my economy. So, in the early game you are not supposed to expand fast, and you are not supposed to build too much, so my thought-process. So I started building troops instead, although there was no threat to my civ whatsoever except for a few barbarians here and there. But what else should I have done? Even building further workers is useless, as the available tiles are improved real fast and roads cost upkeep (I was utterly shocked when I found this out, but I did my best to stay in my "be tolerant, it's a different game" mode).

There are too many game features for me to list here where I sat open-mouthed in front of my pc, asking myself "can they really be serious?". Most of them have been mentioned here before, so I was prepared. Therefore I managed not to get thrown off right away by things like the insanely terrible AI, the one-dimensionality of gold and happiness as the only important factors in the game, the absurd diplomocy, the awkward UI, the linear social policies system, and dozens of minor things that caused me to raise an eyebrow in disbelief. Looking beyond all these flaws, I actually spotted some details that I felt were nicely implemented, like having different numbers of horses on different tiles that offer varying numbers of the resource, or natural wonders, or the combat animations.

So I went on like this, deeply feeling the severe flaws of this game, but staying in my steady mode of "its a new game, stop being so critical!". Then the boredom set in.

Now, ALL previous civ games have kept me awake for entire nights. When I wasn't playing I would often be thinking about what to do next with my glorious empires when I could play again. I had intense discussions about the games with friends or on forums, only to get back to the game and start a new game based on new strategies and possibilities. In fact, I still play Civ4 today once in a while (after literally 10.000s of hours) and it's still fun.

With Civ5 it took me all in all three hours to be bored to death of it. After the early phase I was just clicking next round all the time doing nothing. Not that I didn't try, I searched for features and options and stuff to do really hard but found none. Especially in ways of city management I felt stripped of all my control over my cities, e.g. which tiles are worked, which great people are produced etc. When happiness got too low I built a happiness building somewhere, when gold got too low I built a gold building. Even Civ1 was more inspiring than that! After a random DOW from my neighbour (I was friendly with him all game, trading goods and having research treaties) I thought, well at least some excitement now after all this nothingness. And watched as two of my units defeated his entire army. It was then that I had finally had enough.

At the end of the day I am thankful for Steam providing this play-for-free offer, which was obviously meant as a marketing method for the new expansion, but in reality gives everyone who doesn't have the game yet the chance to see for himself how terrible it really is.
 
For me there were a few things that really killed the fun for me.

First was the one unit per tile, i have found a mod or 2 that have fixed that and made it better since.

Second was the navies and the fact that your units just become the transports instead of having to build them. This was perhaps the biggest problem i had with it as it made warships almost useless, it is very frustrating to establish a naval blockade in a narrow channel only to have the enemy force land below you walk around you blockade and then get back in the water.

Lastly is the whole game seems tedious, lacking in any excitment and takes forever to get anything done.

There are things i do like about the game but they are not enough to offset the things i dont like about it right now.
 
This morning I bought Civ 5 at 75% (9.99 €) instead of trying the free weekend. Joke's on me.

What a horrible piece of crap. I had already tried the demo when it came out and remember feeling that it was really off-putting, and that I instead resolved to get it when it was cheap. And now it was free, even, but I just had to go and buy it. What pulled me into it was the Paradox Interactive-published title "Warlock: Master of the Arcane" that was described as Civilization 5 in a fantasy setting, which is pretty much is, but rather more focused on war if you can believe that. Now this game was actually pretty good for an such a minor title, so I figured Civ 5 had got to be playable now that it had hopefully received a few patches.

Yeah. The game is worthless and worst of all, it is unsalvageable. I have absolutely no hope for whatever future additions Firaxis decide to peddle. At first I believed the atrocious AI was the root of the problem, but as I played on, I realized that this is not the case. The real problem is that not a single decision you take feels interesting. City placement? Just pop it down near some luxury you need and you are set. What to build? Whatever you're missing in happiness, cash or culture. Which city it is doesn't matter! Once I built the Great Library and National College in the same city, that's specialization for you. Declare war? Carefully estimate -- Ha ha who am I kidding, just flip 'em the bird because you know you can't lose anyways!

Even with a good AI, this game would blow because its core mechanics are terrible. Even Civilization 1 had better mechanics. Even Warlock.
 
A day after my highly dissatisfying first experience with Civ5 (see three posts above) I suddenly felt that I may have been too critical of the game and that perhaps I was too negatively biased to enjoy it. Also, I had only seen the beginning stages. So I decided to give it another shot and try to finish one playthrough so I can at least speak about the whole game.

I started a new game (sort of my first real game after my two rather short test games the previous day) and, as in the test games, set the difficulty to emperor (epic speed). This time I played Egypt and went wonder-hogging.
I can't deny that during the game there were some interesting moments. At times I thought that the game isn't all that bad. Without doubt by far the worst civ game ever made, but as a standalone game not compared to other games of the series it seemed sort of decentish. Unfortunately, this feeling died about halfway through.

There were basically three phases. In the first phase I built a few cities and every wonder available (in fact, in the whole game I got every wonder except for one or maybe two. Ok, I had Egypt, but every wonder? On emperor?). The second phase consisted of a big war. Well, I should say big for my opponent, Siam. We both had pretty large empires, however I only produced units in two cities the entire game. My other cities didn't even have barracks. Why? Because it was more than enough. I had already been aware of the terrible AI, but this was just ridiculous. It totally lies beyond my comprehension how anyone in their right mind can enjoy this game with an AI so completely ******ed as this one. You know it is simply impossible to lose. Can it be so hard to program the AI so it doesnt move any random unit without support right next to an enemy city, be it a trebuchet, a worker, or a great general? I was shocked at this desastrous AI. And I read that it has been greatly improved by the last patches. Wtf? I don't want to know how it was like when the game was released.

So after fending off a a few waves of enemy units without any effort at all, I started to conquer one city after the other, using a handful of units. I could have produced more and beaten him quicker, but the combat was already so tedious and boring. At the end of the war I couldn't stand fighting anymore. Combat was supposed to be one the great improvements over Civ4. Whoever made that claim must have a strange sense of what is fun. It is always the same process: advance units, watch enemy move up next to you, destroy his units, bombard city, conquer city, buy courthouse, move on and repeat. Admittedly, the AI wasn't very good in Civ4 either and the combat process was similar. But at least it could build SoD's when attacking (and thereby actually create a threat), and when defending it would make use of siege weapons to soften up the attacking stack, and all in all it fought in a way that required you to at least think a little about where you put your units.

Anyway, finally the war was won. That's when the third phase started, which was very short. I had double the points of the civ on second place, was leading every graph (except military where I was last), and had seven city states as allies (my AI opponents, despite all having 5.000+ gold, had one at the most). In other words, victory was already mine, after half the game, in my first real game, on emperor. I was clicking through my cities in the next rounds, getting new meaningless buildings and wonders. In this stage I had to force myself to keep playing. I could have gone into a new war, but again a few hours of this tedious AI <snip>? No thank you. So I built a few more buildings before I finally couldn't take the boredom anymore and quit.

Now to be fair, the game is not unplayable. It is not the most horrible game ever. And during my game there were a few situations where I even had a very slight feeling of the "just one more turn" notion which we all know from the previous Civs. But there is much to much wrong with it to even be able to compare it with other Civs. Building feels meaningless, perhaps because the buildings don't do very much. Same for wonders; I got almost every one but I didn't really care (except maybe for the hanging gardens, which for me seemed the only notable wonder in the game). I suppose buildings can't do too much, or players would potentially get Carpets of Doom. Not that so many units are needed anyway against the crap AI.

But if building is meaningless, and war is ridiculous, what does that leave us with? Seeing that the game apparently has pretty many fans, I just wonder what in the world all these people get out of the game. Obviously taste varies, but that the AI is broken has nothing to do with taste and is for me reason enough to discard the game after one playthrough. Oh well, I guess I won't find an answer in this thread. ;)


Edit:

@Krepps: Good observations. While my post emphasized the AI, you are spot on with the meaningless decisions. In previous Civs, most decisions felt very important. This was the case for issues like where to found cities, which buildings to build in which cities, how to lead diplomacy and, of course, war. I believe you are right that this, and not the AI (despite being stupid beyond words), is the reason that the game just feels so dull and boring.

Moderator Action: Inappropriate language removed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
I find it hilarious that long before archery is invented, cities have ranged attacks.

I find the interface to be cluttered and uninformative as well. In trying to streamline and dumb everything down, I find it more cumbersome to find details about buildings, units, etc.
 
Are they going to patch the diplomacy or do you have to PAY to fix the diplomacy? I'm already pissed that they're charging us for missing features, and think it's a horrible business practice. But it doesn't matter because no one cares and everyone will buy it NO MATTER WHAT! Just more encouragement for publishers to sell half finished games.

Moderator Action: Merged with rants thread.
 
1 UPT sucks the big one. That said, I still enjoy the game a little. I started a game yesterday in fact. But I still can't figure out what they were thinking with 1 upt. It makes no sense whatsoever. Why bring gaming back into the 90's? Why? Why? why?

I can see limiting stacks. The size of Civ4 stacks got pretty ridiculous. Why not limit to 3 units per tile?

Moderator Action: Moved to the rants thread, since this has nothing to do with the number of users on Steam.
 
errr, combat log? I have no idea what happened during "next turn" playing on strategic map (yeah, I know, who cares about graphics in a tbs expecially when they drag performace down to unplayability)
 
Spoiler :
Well... what can I say...

Civilisation was released in 1991.

Good heavens, practically anything filling a computer screen was cool back then. Civilisation was both cool and original.

What was the primary gripe of an otherwise unfaltable game? The crappy AI, of course.

What does AI mean in terms of Civ games?

1) Where the AI civ chooses to build its cities.

2) How the AI civ operates its units in battle and peace time.

3) Why the AI civ declares war and it's general attitude to the player's civ.

4) What items and at what cost the AI civ is prepared to trade anything.

5) Who the AI civ chooses to ally with in any given situation.

6) When to retreat from battle and the extent of the severity of the peace settlement.

I have not played all the games in the Civilisation series. I have only played Civ2, Civ3, Freeciv and Alpha Centuri. However, all these issues regarding the CRAPPY artificial intelligence aspect of the game appear in every single release, even, sadly, the Civ5 it appears.

Of course this thread has 90 pages of frustration and despair, its so (insert swear word) obvious what is wrong with the Civ series that I can't honestly understand why anyone would even think of picking up any new Civ game until the problems from the first game, 20 YEARS AGO, have been fully or near fully resolved.

20 YEARS OF HAVING THE SAME COMPLAINTS LEVELLED AT THE CIV SERIES.

20 YEARS.

And what do we have?

Yet another civ game which is exactly the same as the first game except for some arbitrary cosmetic changes designed not as an improvement but simply designed as means to make the game 'different enough' to be worthy of new cellophane wrapping and a $30 player investment.

"Bored of the game? Hey, try this 'new' version which has a Platinum tile instead of a Gold tile"

"Have you solved the AI problem yet, you've had, like 20 YEARS to get to grips with it now?"

"Erm... um... Look, nice shiny Platinum!"

I mean, seriously... how can it be put into words that all humans can understand, regardless of an IQ of less than 50 and regardless of a level of greed which would put the original Genghis Kahn to shame?

IT'S THE CRAPPY AI

So here I am, a potential customer for Civ5 and what do I see? Zero improvements over Civ2. Why in god's name would I buy something I already have? All I've been thinking for the past 10 years is "Wonder when the new improved version will come out?" and, quite frankly it hasn't, and it never will! Why do I need to upgrade from Civ2? Oh right, because modern PCs can't read it, oh ok, I'll downgrade to Civ3 then. But, holy crap, I sure hope I don't have to keep downgrading every time Windows needs a cash boost!

I mean, christ, don't tell me, please don't tell me, Civ5 is still doing that thing where:

Your warrior spots a rival's civ's unit after climbing a mountain - immediately you have full contact with that Civ and 2 turns later you receive a demand from halfway across the globe for all your cash or it's war? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

You completely screw over the Ai civ in a deal, utterly bankrupting them, then, 20 turns later when the deal is to be renewed, they say, yeah sure, let's trade with these awesome people again! OMFG, Is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

Just as you finish off one AI civ, cleaning up the last city or two, another AI Civ, regardless of size, military capability, diplomatic history, trade agreements, will, inevitably, attack you because, heaven forbid, you might get bored having a spell of NOT fighting but instead take the opportunity to explore all the other game options the game provides? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

You have just annihilated an assault of 20 archers with your legion of tanks and the AI civ decides the best course of action is to refuse to meet your emissary and send out a further 20 archers to have another go at the tanks? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

Or that thing where:

The Republic form of government is the only form of government which has practical applications regardless of victory conditions and therefore is the form of government the AI is least likely to learn first? OMFG, is it STILL doing that?

The list of AI ******ations is endless and hilarious.

The list of AI ******ations solved after 20 YEARS of intensive development is unstarted and hilarious.

How much would it have cost to employ one engineer on his/her own to examine this problem over the course of 20 YEARS?

I'm sorry? That's a potentially 'wasted' investment?

Oh well, guess I'm not investing any further cash for people who don't have any concept of 'investment' then...
Wow that's just dripping with goodness (which is why I quoted the entire thing).

However, it's really rather sad because it's pretty much spot in with the way that I view Civ 5. I too like many around here have thousands (of hours) if not more invested in the earlier Civ games but yet have less than 30 or so invested in Civ 5 because of the many faults that it has.

I can't in good judgement shell out an additional $30.00 to Firaxis for this upcoming expansion, not until they fix at least the worst of the worst problems and include better game mechanics for those that were either left out completely or cut short to keep their budget down on the game.

Let's see, no religion in Civ 5. Oops here comes religion in the expansion for another $30.00 Let's see what else did they leave out so that they'd have some content to beef up for a payed expansion? Yeah, too much to list I'm sure.

Sorry folks, you've gotten a lot of money out of me over the years what with buying each version of Civ and sometimes more than once for one reason or another but the buck as they say, stops here. You MUST fix the AI and numerous other problems if you want any more money from me. However, I don't think they want my money, what they want to attract is the WOW players money, those players that don't want a game that they have to think too deeply to play and that's just not me, I want to think very much of new strategies to win my game, not be led along by the hand or only have relatively few ways of accomplishing my goals.
 
I won't be buying G&K until I see nobody rant about the expansion pack. :p
 
I won't be buying G&K until I see nobody rant about the expansion pack. :p

Lol, good luck withat bro. I for one am not holding my breath.
 
G&K will be the first CIV product I do not buy. I have played CIV 1=>5 & SMAC and the current version of CIV sucks. Sulla's posts nail it and I don't need to rehash it.

If these idiots develop a CIV 6 - I will not buy it on release, but wait until user reviews come out (must ignore game sites like Gamespot - they can be bought). I don't trust Firaxis or their quality control.

There was so much they could have done with this game.
 
I won't be buying G&K until I see nobody rant about the expansion pack. :p

Then you won't buy it anyway . Some people in this fourm have even found a bug in G&K during the demo and there are people out there who complain about the game even before its release .
 
I know this a bit late, but should we have a thread for 1000 clues you hate ciV? There are so many reasons people hate the game, and I thought this migt be an intresting way of puting them together.
 
Then you won't buy it anyway . Some people in this fourm have even found a bug in G&K during the demo and there are people out there who complain about the game even before its release .

No, I probably wouldn't even buy it with someone else's money.:lol:

I must admit though that when Steam offers it as a free download (probably in prep for the pending release of Civ 6), I will be among those who make the bother to download... while I am sleeping or otherwise occupied with something useful.;)
 
It's pretty obvious that most people complain about the bad AI. They claim that it can't handle 1upt and therefore ruins the whole experience.

While this may be true, I suddenly realised something:

The bad AI in earlier Civ games didn't bother me

Most people would say that this is perfectly normal, that we become more picky as we get older. But not, that's not the case, at least not for me.

Because even though Civ is a strategy game and that the ultimate goal is to win, most of the game is about having a good time. I enjoy fooling Gandhi to be my friend, I enjoy luring Monty's giant SoD into a seemingly obvious trap. In enjoy parking my privateers right outside enemy colonies to steal every shipment of muskets, tools and horses. Coming to think of it, I've never had a problem with these "exploits" and still play these games at a regular basis.

I think the big difference is that conquering stupid AI's isn't fun in Civ 5. The sandbox is gone. It's just a repeative process. I'm no longer that great architect that designed great empires that I could admire for hours. Now it feels like I'm playing a board game, like I'm buying Hotels in a game of Monopoly.
 
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